You know, I sometimes miss America. There are just some great things about it. The wide open skies, the climate... Oh, and getting to wear jeans. That was great. Jeans are just something that isn't stylish for girls to wear. Or, at least, not in this area. I had really liked how they looked. And while there were some things about skirts and shorts I liked, there were certainly some disadvantages to them as well. I had some fairly good memories from my short time spent in the U.S. a couple of years ago. High among the reason was that I had received my dragon necklace there. Something nagged at my thoughts concerning that. What about my necklace was bothering me? I tried to think hard.

I had just about pinned down my concern when a piece of paper was put on the desk in front of me and I was jerked back to reality, completely forgetting about it. It was Tuesday, the day after I had had to recite my poem to the rest of the class. As well as listen to the other students recite their poems - more often forgetting lines than remembering. I had managed to say my poem flawlessly, despite some fears that the dark feeling might come back. Amu hadn't done badly - a couple of prompts from Nikaido to help her along and she was perfectly fine.

Also, I only had four more days until I got my X-energy power-up. It seemed like I had just got rid of one worry (that being my guilt) when another worry comes to replace it. I'd thought about it a bit. Despite that little - I dunno what you want to call it, a relapse, perhaps? Despite that little relapse last Friday evening, I still hadn't had any other moments of darkness for over a week. I figured that I was just getting better at holding it back or something. In which case, I could easily get used to more energy. And, of course, I loved having the power. Maybe next time it would be Ikuto who needed to be escorted home, rather than me. Even if Azami and I were the ones who instigated the fight, I was still pretty darn angry about how it had turned out.

All in all, I was excited about getting more X-energy. So far, Nikaido hadn't mentioned it to me. And nor had I mentioned my soon-to-be power-boost to him. I wondered if perhaps Easter was leaving him in the dark about that. If so, I wasn't going to be the one to cure his ignorance. Chances were, there would be one day where I would just get so annoyed by Nikaido's fake teacher act that I would just snap. And if that happened, it would proabably be good to have a little extra power that he doesn't know about.

Noticing some groans around me, I once again brought my attention away from my thoughts and back to reality. I took a look at the paper on my desk and just about joined in on the general discontent. It was another poem. I knew enough about literature to recognize the author: Edgar Allan Poe. If I was correct, one of the foremost authors of dark, depressing, and often disturbing stories. And if I had any doubts about that, all I had to do was look at the title of the poem.

"Alone"

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov'd—I lov'd alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

If I had thought that Fire and Ice was the most depressing poem ever, I now had to think again. Admittedly, Robert Frost's poem on the end of the world was... well, about the end of the world. But at least that seemed to have an almost sarcastic or humorous tone to it. With how it was worded, at least. In that poem, he's talking so casually about how the world will end. But this poem - well, I had to admit that Edgar Allen Poe was quite a piece of work. Making something like this. And it didn't help that I had to admit that this, like Fire and Ice, was a superbly written poem. If it was just a few sentences trying to be passed off as poetry, then I could just memorize it and be done. But with a poem of this quality, I would probably have no choice but to really think about it, which would probably lead to depressing emotions, which would lead to....

I shook myself. If I could help it, I didn't want to relive Friday night again. I looked around. Yet again, no more depressing poems for the students around me. Almost everything around me was either very silly and happy and upbeat, or at the very worst, serious. But like last time, none except mine was about such a sorrowful or morbid subject. I glared at Nikaido, who was finishing handing out the last of the poems, but he seemed not to notice.

Actually, I take that back. Right as he gave away the last of the poems, he turned and walked over to me. Most of the other students were busy grumbling over their poems, and so weren't really paying attention. Once he was next to my desk, he said in a quiet (and yet not secretive) voice, "Mizuki-san, would you please stay after school today?" Then he left again, going up in front of the class to tell us we had just over two weeks to memorize these poems. That would take us a bit more than halfway through the month.

I realized just how close the end of the semester was. It was the first full week of November right now; only six more weeks and it would be the last week of school. While it would be great not to have to sit seven hours in a classroom every day, I thought that I might actually be sad when the break came. I probably wouldn't get to see the guardians every day. But then again, there was obviously still next semester.

* * *

"So what is it this time?" I asked Nikaido once all the other students had left. "You couldn't possibly want more X-eggs. I just gave them all to you last Friday."

"You really should be more respectful to your teacher, Mizuki-san." He said as he shuffled through some papers. "You're just lucky that I'm such a nice teacher who doesn't mind such a disrespectful student."

"Yeah, yeah." I said, rolling my eyes. Despite my attitude, I was still intensely creeped out by Nikaido. But I tried to hide it under my layer of impudence. "I'm ever so blessed to have you as a teacher, Nikaido-sensei." I said, my voice filled to the brim with sarcasm.

"I'm so glad you think so!" said Nikaido brightly, as if he hadn't caught how sarcastic the comment was. "However, we should skip the flattery and get to your business here. Do you know who Hayashi Hideki is? He's in this class."

"I know who he is." I said. "But I've never talked to him."

"Well, he normally talks with his friends in front of the school about this time. I want you to go up and try to scratch him with your chara-change. And of course, you'd want to do this without being caught."

"Why him?" I asked.

"Because, his heart is already wavering. It shouldn't be hard." Nikaido replied as he started putting some papers in his briefcase.

I thought for a moment. "But I was under the impression that you could draw out X-eggs."

"And why would you think that?" he asked.

"You're always around whenever I've seen X-eggs here. Add that to the fact you can see charas and you work for Easter, and it's not to hard to figure out." I said.

"Oh? Perhaps I am teaching you something, after all." said Nikaido. "Well, then think of it this way. Whenever I draw out an X-egg, the guardians always purify it. If you also cause an X-egg to come out while I draw out another, then chances are that at least one of us will get the egg."

I frowned a bit. "But why do we need to get X-eggs here so bad? I can get plenty of X-eggs outside of school."

Nikadio looked up at me and smiled. Any cockiness I had left. I hated that evil smile of his. "Do you really need to question everything I order? Do remember, you have to do whatever I say, Mizuki-san."

I remained silent, not replying.

"Did you hear me, Mizuki-san? You really ought to answer when I'm talking to you." He said, with just a hint of threat behind the kind outer facade.

"Y-yeah." I said. I couldn't help but stutter a little. His cold amber eyes were drilling into me. As always, I couldn't meet his gaze.

"Good!" Said Nikaido brightly, turning his stare away from me. "You may go now. Have a good day, Mizuki-san!"

As soon as we were out of the room and the door was closed, Azami started talking. "Why in the world are you still freaked out by Nikaido? Perhaps I could understand it the first time - I mean, you had thought he was a perfectly average teacher - but now? He may be evil, but he's just a human. Be a dragon, for crying out loud!"

We started walking down the stairs and out to the front of the school. "Fine." I replied. "Then character change with me next time so that I can at least get used to acting like a dragon."

"Only if you promise to try it yourself after that." Azami said.

I thought about it. "Deal." Of course, if I was a dragon who did whatever I wanted, who said I had to follow up on the promise?

As we exited the school, I saw Hideki just a few feet away, talking with some friends. Not only that, but he was even standing around the route I would normally take to get to the royal garden, which is where I would be going after this. He was making this incredibly easy for me.

"You ready, Azami?" I murmered.

"Of course I am! Chara-change!" she said. My eyes and necklace turned red as they always did, and my nails grew longer and sharper. As I walked past my unsuspecting victim, I raised my arm just a bit and scratched him. I made it a tiny scratch - I wouldn't want anyone to get suspicious of a massive gash in his arm. Whether or not he noticed my attack, I don't know, since I just kept on walking straight forward. I didn't know how long it would take to sink in - perhaps it would be forestalled for a bit because he was talking to friends. I mean, the darkness never rose inside of me when I was around the guardians. I didn't think this should be much different.

I kept walking and was fairly soon at the garden, where the rest of the guardians were. Azami wasn't feeling any X-egg yet, so we supposed we might as well go in.

"Oh, hello Yamada-san." said Tadase as they stopped whatever conversation they were having to welcome me. "We were just talking about Friday night. We each separately felt a dark energy, but we couldn't find any X-eggs when we went to look."

"It was gone before we could find it." said Nadeshiko.

Yaya stood up adamantly. "Yaya saw it! There was a giant bird going over Yaya's house when she felt the X-eggs!"

All of the guardians kind of rolled their eyes at this. I don't think any of them believed her, or at least not word for word. But Yaya was way to close to the right idea for me to be comfortable. I was worried - I hadn't really been paying attention where I was flying that night, and it looked like I'd managed to go near enough to everyone's houses that they could feel the energy.

As I took my seat, Amu said, "What we think Yaya means is that there was something that went over her house when she felt the energy - perhaps a flock of X-eggs."

"No, no, no! Yaya saw a big black bird!" Yaya fussed.

"Okay, okay!" said Kukai with a laugh. "If you say you saw a big bird, then I believe you!"

"What about you two?" asked Miki, hovering near Amu's shoulder. "Did you two feel anything?"

"I did." said Azami. "But I felt it for such a short time that I didn't bother telling Miyuki-chan."

I got the idea. "Why you little...! You didn't tell me the last time something like this happened, either!" I was surprised. My anger actually sounded convincing - or, at least, it seemed that way to me. Maybe I really was slowly becoming my would-be self. I mean, a chara-change with Azami always made me a great liar as well.

"Tadase-kun, I don't like this." said Nadeshiko. "All these strange feelings... and the amount of X-eggs recently, too."

Tadase nodded. "I know what you mean. It seems like someone - probably Easter - is planning something."

"But what are we going to do, Tadase-kun?" asked Amu.

"We're in the same position as we have been." said Tadase. "We can't do anything if we don't know what Easter is up to."

"Then why worry about it?" asked Kukai with a grin. "Besides, it's not like Easter has directly attacked us."

"What about what happened to Miyuki-san?" asked Nadeshiko, smiling at Kukai's forgetfulness.

"Oh. Yeah, that's right!" he said, laughing at his temporary lapse of memory. "But even then, you healed quickly enough from it!" He was right about that - I'd had my bandages off in just a couple days, the slashes nearly done healing. I wondered if that fast healing had anything to do with the X-energy... but my mind was wandering again. I brought it back to the conversation at hand.

"Well, I agree with Kukai." said Amu, for once speaking her mind. She normally wasn't very vocal in decisions like this. "If we-"

She stopped as all the charas gathered on and around the table flinched and turned to something that the guardians and I couldn't see.

Azami was the first to say it. "An X-egg!"

"Let's go." said Tadase. We all got rapidly go up and ran to the door to leave the garden. But this time we were a bit trickier about it. We didn't want to draw attention like the last time. Instead of bursting out, we quietly opened the doors and slipped through some trees into the park-like area of the school grounds. The entrance of the royal garden was far enough away from where most of the people congregated after school that no one noticed us. Or, if they did, they didn't make a big deal about it.

"Where's the X-egg?" Amu asked once we were out of hearing range of the other students.

"It's that way!" said Ran, pointing farther into the trees. But then all the chara's turned in unison towards the school.

"There's another egg in there!" Daichi exclaimed.

"What?" said Amu. "Two X-eggs? But which one do we go after?"

Tadase turned to Kukai. "Why don't you and Yuiki-san go with Amu - I'll go with Fujisaki-san and Yamada-san to hold off the other one until Hinamori-san can come and purify the egg."

Kukai did a thumbs up. "Roger! Come on, guys!" Before I could really comprehend it, he had grabbed Yaya's arm with one hand and Amu's arm in the other and dashed off.

"Please wait, desu~!" Su shouted as she, Ran, Miki, and Pepe tried to catch up with Amu, Yaya, Kukai, and Daichi.

I grinned, but Nadeshiko and Tadase were both serious. I let the smile fade as we ran off in the other direction, towards the school. We went in by one of the side doors of the school, so as to avoid the stares of the students still hanging around the front.

"That way, commoners!" Kiseki said, directing us down a hall to our right as soon as we were in the building. The rest of us silently followed. I normally wouldn't trust Kiseki's sense of direction, but since neither Azami nor Temari were arguing with it, I guessed we were going the right way. Eventually, we entered the computer lab.

"It's in here." said Temari.

We looked around. There were probably at least thirty or so computers in the room, lined up in six rows.

"Where is it?" I asked. "I'm not seeing it anywhere."

"Let's look through the rows. Maybe it's hiding." suggested Nadeshiko.

We sort-of split up, each picking a different row of computers to look through. Each of us went through our first row without finding anything. Then, as I was making my way through my second row, I heard it: an extremely faint clattering sound.

Breaking the almost-silence, Tadase turned to Kiseki and asked, "Are you sure there's something in here?"

"Shhh!" I said, cutting off whatever Kiseki had been about to say. Nadeshiko and Tadase watched me curiously as I tried to pinpoint the sound. I walked forward a bit, then heard the noise just to my right. I looked over, and hunched between the hardrive and the monitor was an X-egg, trembling in apparent fear. I thought about pocketing it - that was what Nikaido had ordered me to do - but I doubted I could get away with it.

"Found it!" I said, smiling, as Azami triggered a chara-change. My gaze paralyzed the already terrified X-egg, making sure that it wouldn't get away.

Without removing my gaze, I said, "Okay, I've got the little guy stuck here. But I'm not sure how long my concentration will hold."

"Great job, Yamada-san!" said Tadase as he rushed over, followed by Nadeshiko. I was already getting distracted, though, and it took all my will power to keep my eyes trained on the egg. I mean, watching an X-egg tremble isn't exactly the most entertaining thing in the world.

"You know, you guys could go help Amu." I said. I thought I should at least make an attempt and grabbing this egg, though I couldn't as long as they were around. "Then you all could come back so Amu could purify the egg."

"No. We won't abandon you, Miyuki-san." said Nadeshiko. I was both touched and offended at the same time. On one hand, it was nice of them not to just leave me. On the other hand, I almost thought that them not leaving me alone was a sign that they thought I was weak. Perhaps they were thinking that I couldn't take care of a single X-egg by myself. But I doubted she was implying that. It was probably just my imagination getting away from me.

"Okay, thanks." I said, "But please keep talking. I need something to think about, or else my eyes are going to wander." I said. Which was true. If I had something to do as I stared at the egg, I thought perhaps I'd be able to not get too bored with my task.

"Oh, got it." Said Nadeshiko. "Did I tell you what Temari did the other day?"

"No." I said, curious. "What'd she do?"

Temari quietly interrupted before Nadeshiko could answer, "Please don't, Nade-"

Then Temari was interrupted as Amu barged into the room. And my concentration broke. I immediately turned to look at Amu, not thinking about the X-egg. Amu was in her customary pink cheerleader outfit, having character-transformed with Ran.

"Useless!" I heard the X-egg say from behind me as it darted off. But Tadase and Nadeshiko were thankfully thinking ahead. They dashed off in front of each of the two windows of the computer lab, blocking any chance of escape. The X-egg turned back to the doorway, but that was blocked by Amu, Yaya, and Kukai. As it hesitated, looking for a way out, Amu took her chance.

"Negative heart! Lock on!" Amu shouted as a pink glow came from her humpty lock. "Open Heart!" The pink light went through her hands, targeting the X-egg. The X-egg turned white in the light, and Amu stepped out of the way as the purified egg zoomed out the door past her, presumable to return to its owner. My eyes, necklace, and finger nails went back to normal as my chara change faded, and Amu's outfit was replaced by her normal uniform.

"So were you able to purify the other X-egg, Hinamori-san?" asked Tadase.

"Yeah." Amu said. "It was from a kid in our class."

"But what are the chances that there would be two X-eggs at once?" asked Kukai, while stretching his arms in front of him.

"Yaya thinks it must be Easter again!" Yaya said.

"But what are they doing?" asked Nadeshiko, concerned.

It seems like we're coming back to this subject a lot. I thought to myself.

Tadase clenched his fists, angry. "That's the problem. We just don't know what they could be doing with those X-eggs. Do they think the embryo will come out if they collect a lot of X-eggs?"

"Who knows what Easter thinks?" asked Kukai, not expecting an answer.

Inwardly, I agreed with Kukai. Even I didn't know what Easter thought they were doing.

* * *

As I walked back from school that day, I couldn't help but feel I had forgotten something. I racked my brains for an answer. I tried to think back through the day... was it something to do with getting more X-egg power? No, that didn't seem right. Did it have to do with the X-eggs today? That seemed to ring a bell. I tried to remember everything concerning that. And then I remembered: I still wanted to know what it was Temari did the other night, as Nadeshiko had been saying. I made a mental note to ask Nadeshiko tomorrow. But something still nagged at me. It felt important.

But what was it?

*If you didn't get a chance to read my note that I have now deleted, the reason I haven't posted for a while is ebcause I had the chance to send some short stories in to be published locally, and had been focusing my energies on that so I could get my stories in before the due date*

Sorry about the temporary absence. (I'm also sorry about this probably horrible chapter that has resulted in not writing in this story for a while.) However, I did get my two short stories written, and I'll keep you updated as to whether they make it into this little locally published thing. One of them is actually based on the themes of shugo chara - believing in your dreams, how bad hopelessness is, etc. Although it bares no resemblance whatsoever to the anime/manga. It's like a complete opposite, actually.

All the poems I get for this story I obtain from www[dot]poetryoutloud[dot]org. If you're in to poetry, it's a really nice site. I obviously own none of the poems that I've been putting on here. I'll let you know if I right something original like that.

Finally, I would like to ask anyone who has read my story so far to take the poll that I've put on my profile. It concerns how well you think I'm doing with this fanfic. After I realized that this site randomly arranges the order of the questions, I tried to edit them and label the questions as per category, but as of the time I'm writing this that wasn't working right. Please just check whichever statements you agree with, and just give me your true and honest opinions. I'll probably be doing this periodically throughout the story.

Anyway, as always, I'm grateful to you for reading! If I'm lucky, I'll get another chapter out sometime this weekend.